As the All Party Parliamentary Group inquiry into rural housing and older people wraps up its final evidence session, the group will now turn to its final recommendations. Allowing the planning system to focus on older person’s housing need across income ranges could transform the future for struggling villages.

With Korea firmly on the world stage again, Derek Long was interviewed by Asian Property News for his insight into its unique property market.

- After a major dip in the housing market in 2013, have things begun to improve, or have recent problems - presidential corruption, threats from DPRK, a shift in US policy away from Asia - exacerbated the problem?

In a year when May came after June, you might have bet that the Starter Homes initiative would also have landed on the new prime minister's bonfire of George Osborne's vanities. Yet, as the government gets set to announce a paradigm lurch towards ownership in planning policy, our new research into the Starter Homes market raises important questions about whether developers and councils can meet Downing Street's aspirations.

So, the dust settles on an Autumn statement which left some low income families breathing a sigh of relief as proposed cuts in tax credits were scrapped and buy to let landlords contemplating the impact of a 3% surcharge on stamp duty.

Win or lose, there is little doubt that he changes announced by the Chancellor this week will be closely scrutinised over the coming days and weeks, and here are some early observations on how they impact on older people.

Veteran Conference speaker Derek Long, has drafted “another page from the housing textbook for the University of Life” to help you get through your next conference. “Whether you’ve been caught resting your eyes just too long in the morning plenary or returning from an important break out session in a nearby pub, these are the topics to distract your boss with,” he says.

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Delegates never return from the Federation’s Annual Conference saying they have seen something genuinely historic that will unlock new market opportunities for them. Yet, the opening of Grand Central – the new shopping mall above the redeveloped Birmingham New Street Station – has changed all that!

The South Korean housing market is currently under immense pressure. Jeonse, its unique tenure form where tenants pay upwards of 60% of the entire value of the house, has become almost unaffordable in the first half of 2015.

Arc4 director Derek Long, a keynote speaker to the government’s First International Housing Finance Forum in Seoul in 2013, was recently asked by Seoul’s equivalent to Radio 4's PM programme to bring a British perspective on what reforms could rebalance the Korean housing market as part of a discussion with local professors. Click the play button below to listen to the programme, which was broadcast at the end of July.